Morse, C. C.–Santa Clara, California–pioneer breeder in sweet peas, established the C. C. Morse & Co. in 1877.  The C. C. Morse & Co. was the successor to Cox Seed Co. in San Francisco, California.  Morse’s son Lester L. Morse, born in 1870, continued the development of the sweet pea, and he wrote Field Notes on Sweet Peas.   The second edition was published by the C. C. Morse & Co in 1905 .  Frank G. Cuthbertson supervised all the sweet pea work done at Morse & Co. and wrote the descriptions and notes on the list of varieties in the publication.  In April 1906, the San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed the seed company building with everything in it.  At that time they consolidated their business with the Cox Seed Co. and the Seed House of E. J. Bowen.  They continued all of the departments of the Cox company including the nurseries, retail store, catalog mail business, wholesale department, and commission box department.   The 1909 catalog has extensive photographs of the company offices and farms.  In 1915, the Morse Exhibition garden at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition won the Grand Prize.  By 1917, they had sold their nursery department to the Vallance Nursery owned by the two brothers, John and James Vallance, who had managed the department for a number of years previously.   In 1930, the company was merged with the D. M. Ferry & Co., Detroit, Michigan to become the Ferry-Morse Seed Company.  The Pacific Coast operations were under the direction of Lester L. Morse.  Lester’s son Charles C. Morse continued the development of flowers.
Sources:  SW3; cat.-022551; cat-012950; cat-016462; cat-015737; cat-016422; CHSJ-Jul. 1961; CHSJ-Oct. 1961; CP
http://www.ferry-morse.com/history.htm
http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/speccoll/html/agc.html